Till Human Voices Wake Us
by Mr. Bigglesworth
Summary: Charles is having that dream about the mermaids and the fudge sauce again...


**Till Human Voices Wake Us**

A Wee Foray Into Dariarotica(*) 

by 

Mr. Bigglesworth 

Charles was dreaming about the mermaids again. 

He knew it was a dream partly because he'd had it -- or variations on it -- before, partly because there were no beaches like this obviously tropical one anywhere near Lawndale, but mainly because there was simply no _way_ these were costumes he was looking at. 

Beginning just below the belly button of each of the lovelies he was surrounded by, the human skin made an impossibly smooth transition to iridescent scales. Were they green? Were they blue? They seemed to belong somewhere in that part of the spectrum, predominantly, but they threw off every color of the rainbow in the sunlight. And as for what the scales covered, well, it was a _tail_, with no sign of anything like legs underlying it, sporting a small pair of ventral fins (though, in true mythical-mermaid fashion, no sign of a ventral opening) and widening out at its end into a set of flukes or flippers. 

Strangely, though, instead of _feeling_ cold and scaly, _these_ mermaids' tails felt as soft and warm as any human skin, contrasting with the cool feeling of the breaking surf which kept running almost up to the level of his head as he lay naked on the beach. 

_Funny how the dream seems to get more detailed and vivid each time I have it,_ thought Charles. 

He could tell that the mermaids felt soft and warm because one of them was reclining across his legs, just above the knees, and two others were lying atop each of his outstretched arms, effectively pinning him in place. Restraint wasn't always a theme in this dream, though it wasn't the first time it had occurred. 

The identity of the mermaids had also varied, though they were always -- at least from the waist up -- girls he knew or at least recognized. And he certainly recognized these. Across Charles' legs, resting her head on one hand, propped up with an elbow, was the lovely Tiffany Blum-Deckler, gazing vacantly (or perhaps she was just bored, he never had been able to tell with that one) at nothing in particular. The tawny-brown skin, the firm budding breasts with their small brown nipples, everything about her was just as he'd imagined it so many times during his years at Lawndale High. 

On his left arm, her, ah, tail section making sure it didn't leave the sand, was one of Miss Blum-Deckler's companions in fashion, the sleek, elegant, haughty and, dare he say it, cruel Sandi Griffin. Similarly anchoring Charles' right arm was what he had come to regard as the second-loveliest of the Fashion Club members, Miss Morgendorffer the Younger...or a mermaid version of her. 

So it was to be the Fashion Club this time, was it? But where was his favorite, the beautiful, yet shy Stacy Rowe? 

As if summoned (ah, dreams!) she was suddenly there, lying on her stomach next to him, chin resting on her hands, just gazing at him, seeming to consider for a moment, then rolling atop him. The Stacy-mermaid lay with her body along the length of his, the end of her tail draped over the Tiffany-mermaid (who seemed not to notice), her hands resting on Charles' shoulders, looking down at him with those huge beautiful doe eyes of hers. Charles thought for a moment -- hoped fervently, in fact -- that she'd favor him with a kiss from those full, luscious, soft (he had, alas, never felt them, but he _knew_ they had to be!) lips of hers, but even in dreams one doesn't always get everything one wants. 

'Stacy' did, however, begin to do something else: slowly at first, then gradually faster, with a sinuosity no real girl could possibly imitate, she began to wriggle the...well, the part of her that _made_ her a mermaid...against him. This frottage was something new, but Charles found it a far from unwelcome variation as his body began to respond. There was no penetration or envelopment -- with an exception made for what she was doing now, traditionally there was only one..._favor_...a mermaid was equipped to grant. 

As if reading Charles' mind (or as if he were dreaming), the Stacy-mermaid pushed the upper part of herself up away from him and, suddenly, there was a can of fudge sauce in her hand. She smiled knowingly down at him, tilted the can back and forth a few times, then poured it onto Charles' chest. When the sauce hit his skin, thick gooey rivulets of chocolatey goodness ran every which way, some down his sides, some over his shoulders, a bit even pooling in the hollow at the base of his throat. 

'Stacy' continued pouring, laying a trail of fudge sauce down the centerline of Charles' torso, rolling herself from atop him as she did, and finished off the can by pouring the last of its contents over certain of Charles Ruttheimer III's most prized possessions. 

After pausing for a moment, seeming to appraise her handiwork, the Stacy-mermaid began, as had happened in many dreams before, with various mermaids, ever since the first time he'd had this dream years ago, to remove the fudge sauce from Charles' body with her lips and tongue. 

Sometimes before, the other mermaids had joined-in, but as had usually been the case since that magic show he and the real Stacy had put on during Senior Year at Lawndale High, the others were little more than bystanders -- and, a little unusually, restraints. This had definitely become Stacy's show. 

She made her way slowly down his belly, detouring, strangely, around his navel where some of the sauce had pooled, maintaining eye-contact the whole time. When she'd worked her way down as low as his hips, she started at the edge of the fudge sauce and worked her way inwards, with excruciating slowness, licking up every last trickle of sauce as she made her way to where, ah, certain parts of Charles were demonstrating that she had his undivided attention. 

Then, at last, at last! Using just the lightest sips and flicks of her tonguetip, 'Stacy' removed the fudge sauce from Charles' most sensitive regions, till he was completely cleaned-off and groaning and straining, looking up at the amused faces of the Quinn and Sandi-mermaids as they giggled at his predicament. 

Finally, a voice: the first actual words anyone had spoken in the dream. "Gee, I hope I'm doing this right," said the Stacy-mermaid, in the same nervous-yet-excited tone Stacy had used when chaining him up for his escape from the trunk at their magic show. 

On hearing this, Charles looked down, and saw the Stacy-mermaid's nervous tone belied by the playfully mocking look in her eyes as she took him into her mouth. Charles' breath hissed through clenched teeth at the almost unbearable sensation of soft, hot wetness. Again he strained against the other mermaids' restraint, again triggering a gigglefit from them, as that soft hot wetness engulfed more and more of him, taking him further into her mouth, her throat until she had all of him. The briefest of pauses, then with the same excruciatingly sweet slowness 'Stacy' disgorged him, paused, took him back in, over...and over...and over... 

Again Charles let his head drop back, looking up at the sky and at 'Quinn' and 'Sandi' as the sensation built and built. Then he felt something different, something that made him look up suddenly into 'Stacy's face again: a sudden hardness amid the softness as she ever-so-lightly raked teeth along the entire length of him on one of her upward strokes. 

_Something else that's never happened before in this dream,_ thought Charles, _and how did she know I liked that?_

As their eyes met, the Stacy-mermaid smiled up at him, her hair falling over one of her eyes. 

_Had it been down the whole time? _he wondered. _I never did tell her how much prettier she looks with it down than in those pigtails she always used to wear._

He wanted to brush the hair back out of her face, to stroke it, to touch her in some way. He tried to raise one arm to do so, but of course it wouldn't budge. He looked up for a moment, to see the Quinn-mermaid smile down at him and wag a finger back-and-forth in a tut-tutting gesture. 

The Stacy-mermaid took a brief detour, kissed her way a short distance up his abdomen, and, placing her lips over his navel, sucked most of the remaining fudge sauce out of it, then quickly scooped up what remained with her tongue. She then spent a little while kissing around in the general vicinity before taking him back into her mouth. Not as deeply this time, but she was moving more rapidly. Her hand wrapped around below where her oral attentions were reaching and began moving up-and-down in time with the bobbing of her head. 

It wouldn't be long now, Charles thought, not long at all. Soon he was squirming and writhing and whimpering beneath the Sandi-Quinn-Tiffany mermaids as he got closer and closer and _closer..._his head tilted back again, looking up...yes, this was it this was _it_-- 

A moment that obliterated all thought, then a brief confused wondering where the sky had gone, then the second spasm hit and Charles crunched forward, his beginning-to-focus gaze falling on a pair of eyes -- _not_ Stacy's, though they were lovely, even without their usual makeup -- and a wild tangled mass of black hair. A third and final spasm, a shiver as it ended, and then Charles fell back on the bed as he tried to catch his breath. 

"And a good morning to you too," said a familiar voice. 

After a moment, Charles managed to prop himself up on his elbows and looked down to where Andrea was wiping at the corner of her mouth with the edge of her hand. 

"To you _too?_" asked Charles a little dazedly. Then a horrible possibility occurred to him. "Did I...uhm..._say_ something as I...woke up?" 

_Oh God please let me not have said Stacy's name, _he thought. 

"Yeah," replied Andrea, "and I suppose I _should_ be offended..." 

_Oh no oh nonono_

"I mean, 'muhgugg'n-OOG!' is kind of inarticulate even by your usual early-morning standards," Andrea replied. 

"Still," she continued, sliding up in bed so she was lying next to Charles, "I guess I can forgive you." 

Partly in relief, but mostly from plain affection, Charles hugged Andrea tightly, buried his face in her shoulder, enjoying the warmth, and how _soft_ she was-- she'd been self-conscious about her weight early on in their relationship, but (and he was beginning to think he might actually have her convinced of this by now) he _liked_ the way she felt. In fact, the thought of how one of those bone-skinny Fashion Clubbers would feel in a close embrace...well, he thought, some things were best left in dreams. Charles inhaled. His lover smelled a little bit of sweat...a tiny bit of whatever she'd washed her hair with yesterday...but mostly like, well, Andrea. It was kind of hard to describe. 

After a moment, she pushed away from him, rolled over so that she was sitting on the edge of the bed. She stretched, yawned, then said "well, you're welcome and all, Chuck, but I think it's time we both started thinking about showers and getting ready for work." 

Charles grinned and started towards Andrea, but she put a hand on the center of his chest and pressed, which had the two effects of giving her the leverage to push herself upright, and of pushing him back onto the bed. 

"_Separate_ showers, Goatboy!" she admonished playfully. 

Charles contented himself with admiring the Ruebenesque curves of Andrea's body as she walked off towards the bathroom. Of course, it was probably just as well, he thought. The few things the two of them had tried in the shower had proved a lot more..._awkward..._than he'd always expected they'd be. 

After a few moments of luxuriating in bed, when he heard the water running in the bathroom, Charles got up, pulled on a pair of sweatpants, and walked into the kitchen of the apartment he and Andrea shared. As he busied himself with making coffee and as much of breakfast as he could get together before Andrea was finished cleaning-up, he reflected on how...was 'energized' really the word for it?...he felt. However he was feeling, he'd just learned of a truly delightful way of being awakened. As he puttered about in the kitchen, he actually began humming to himself as he began musing -- brushing aside a brief pang of ridiculous jealousy (such things being unworthy of a Ruttheimer!) -- on just what sort of dreams his sweet Andrea might awaken from when, some morning very soon, he returned the favor. 

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(the end) 

_**the disclaimers: **_Daria (even though she doesn't appear in this story, I mention her anyway) and all ancillary characters are the property of MTV/Viacom, not me. I'm not making a dime off this story and suing me would probably be bad PR (to say nothing of Karma) anyway. 

(*) The term 'Dariarotica' was coined by the mysterious Gystex, on/at the Paperpusher's Messageboard. I like it, I'm pretty sure he didn't copyright it, and even kind of got the impression he didn't mind if others used it, so I'm using it here. 


End file.
